When I First Saw Her Part Two
by Midnyght Saber
Summary: My take on what the second chapter could have been for the story "When I First Saw Her", by Nova-Janna.


**Disclaimer: **_Danny Phantom _and all related characters and information are the property of Butch Hartman and Viacom International Inc. The original story, _When I First Saw Her_, which inspired this 'second chapter', is the creative property of Nova-Janna. And, yes, I did get clearance from her to release this. Her story is located at fanfiction. net /s/2228592/1/. Just make sure to get rid of the spaces.

* * *

Her fingers danced over the keypad of her cell phone lightly, shaking with emotions long forgotten.

Three years.

Three years that she hadn't seen him.

Three years that she had spent becoming everything that her parents wanted her to be, forcibly removed from her old life.

The phone began to ring, and a voice answered after the second tone. "Hello?"

Sam opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.

"Hello?" the voice asked again. "If this is some kind of practical joke, I'm not laughing."

"Dan…Danny," Sam finally managed.

"Sam?" the reply came. "The bodyguard…I didn't think he'd actually…How have you been?"

"I've…basically the same ever since I left. I lost touch with you almost immediately, Tucker just a few months later. I finally got away from my manager and my folks earlier this week." She smiled as she heard Danny's faint laugh over the line. "The atmosphere was starting to really suffocate me. I _had_ to take a vacation."

"What on Earth would possess you to come all the way out to Salem, though?"

Sam blinked, suddenly unsure of what, exactly, had led her out to the East Coast and to the city where Danny had moved. "Not too sure," she answered, looking down at her feet, unsure of how to continue, silence coming from his end of the line. "Do you mind if we meet up somewhere?"

"Sure. Where?"

"Is there a park around here?"

"Yeah, there is. Salem Common is on Hawthorne Boulevard. You know where that is?"

"No, but I can find out."

"Alright, so I'll see you there around ten tomorrow, okay?"

Sam nodded to herself. "Sure. Bye, Danny."

"Laters, Sam."

**Toll no bell for me, Father**

**But let this cup of suffering pass from me**

Danny stumbled into his apartment, not from one to many drinks but from the tears clouding his vision. So much time had passed, and the sound of her voice had opened up all of the old wounds on his heart, the ones he thought were forever closed by the pain of the last three years. Collapsing against his wall, Danny curled up, face pressed into his pants, and cried, the tears falling from their deep sapphire depths.

**Send me no shepherd to heal my world**

**But the Angel**

**The dream foretold**

"What am I supposed to say? Three years can't be made up for in just a few hours, let alone a few days. That aside, would she even really remember me? The last time she saw me…Danny Phantom was still part of my life."

The name tasted bitter in his mouth, the moniker of the alter identity that had nearly destroyed him, now kept contained and hidden for the last two years.

All the fights that he'd gotten into had caused him to have to repeat senior year, and after graduation, it only got worse. He had tried to stay on top of the four part-time jobs that he'd had, but due to his ghost hunting, he'd lost the first one after a month, the other three following in quick succession.

Now and again, he volunteered to help his parents with the stipulation that they'd help pay off the rent until he was back on his feet.

Looking out the window, the twilight sky dancing through the glass, Danny fell back, allowing himself to collapse onto his mattress. He lay there for a moment, lost in silent reflection, his head buried in his hands.

**Prayed more than thrice for you to see**

**The wolf of loneliness in me**

Walking over to his closet, he pulled out three shoeboxes that had been tucked away in the back, two of which were summarily kicked under the bed as his fingers prowled through the third as he sat down.

Pulling a single paper from about the middle of the pile, Danny scanned one of the works that he'd done recently, a poem that had kept to the deepest truth of his heart concerning his feelings for his one-time best friend. He'd spoken of her as the one that looked down on him from the theater big screens, whose voice drifted over the speakers every time he turned on the radio.

_You are the true meaning of beauty_

_The definition of perfection_

_The Goddess of my religion_

_The Angel of my heart_

_Without you, I cannot go on_

_Without you, what have I to live for?_

_Guiding light_

_Helping hand_

_Soothing touch_

_Calming voice_

_The tides of misfortune_

_Swept me far out into the sea of confusion_

_But your spirit found me_

_And returned me to calm shores_

_When I reach out_

_I find nothing but air_

_And my mind insists that you are naught_

_But a fleeting dream_

_A trick of imagination and perception_

_My heart speaks other words_

_Tells me that you are more_

_You are real_

_My soul knows nothing_

_Remains forever silent_

_For it was shattered years ago_

_Through failure, deceit_

_Misunderstanding and loss_

_Now you alone have the power to repair it_

_Angel, Goddess_

_Heaven's gift to this world_

_Please return to me_

**Not my own will but yours be done**

Lying back against the plush pillows of the hotel where she'd rented a room, Sam sighed heavily. There was so much about Danny that had changed, so much pain, all evident in the tone of his voice. He'd tried his best to hide it, but she'd always been good at reading him, even after all these years. She felt, and sympathized with, his torment. After all, it was much like what she had felt when she had discovered what her parents had planned for her.

Despite her personal desire to get into a private field, such as painting or writing, her mother had signed her up for a chain of talent interviews. She had tried to flub it, tried to fail so that she could pursue her own dreams, but she had gotten caught.

To this day, she still mentally kicked herself for that night. About two weeks after Danny's late-night disappearance from Amity Park, she had been in her room, singing whatever decided to pop into her head, including a few songs of her own, her voice rebounding around the small room.

She'd forgotten that a friend of her parents was due over that night, one that was also the last talent scout she would have to deal with. All it took was three minutes of listening at her bedroom door and she was signed, sealed and delivered into the hands of an industry that tried to hack away at what she was until she became their model idol.

Sam slammed her fists against the pillows, cursing her parents for what they had made of her.

**You wake up**

**Where's the tomb?**

**Will Easter come?**

**Enter my room**

She lay there, wondering how different things could have been had she been able to stay. She often found herself like this, silently wishing that some parts of her past could be rewound. Even now, she needed time to be with Danny, to figure out what it was that kept her going all these years without him. Her songs should have been indicative of her emotional turmoil, a sign of her feelings, but the record label and the manager that her mother had hired to work for her almost never let her own material be released. Only with the most recent CD, slated for release next month, was she able to get her own music out in the public eye. Both of the songs were ballads, ringing of the pain of loss and the desire for love for a lonely, longing heart, and she knew that Danny was the unnamed gentlemen of who she'd sung about.

**The Lord weeps for me**

**But my tears fall for you**

As Sam began to fall into the welcoming arms of sleep, she found herself torn by a heart-wrenching realization – she'd seen Danny at the bar earlier today. Alone, disheveled, worn to the bone, looking more broken than he had sounded over the phone. She may have lost her freedom and had to bury her own dream for another day, but Danny had lost everything: his friends, his support, his hope. Some small part of her wanted to believe that she could bring him back, that she would be able to save him from the darkness that seemed to shroud his soul.

**Another Beauty**

**Loved by a Beast**

**Another tale of infinite dreams**

Danny writhed on his bed, fighting off eventual sleep, the loss of light behind his closed eyelids all too familiar, something that he hated vehemently. It was in that darkness, in the blink of an eye, really, that he'd lost her forever.

"Why am I trying to kid myself? She may have been my friend growing up, but she never cared for me beyond that. And even if she did at one time, I'm no one. I'm a monster among the crowd that she belongs to now. She deserves more than I could ever afford to give her."

Danny flipped over in bed again, struggling to keep himself awake. If the darkness of night in which he'd lost Sam the first time wasn't enough to mentally destroy him, the dreams that he had would be. Nearly every night since he'd left with his family, all he ever saw in the void of his unconscious was Sam with other men, the tabloids that he read fuel for the forces that broke his heart. There was no truth or lies with Sam anymore. He could no longer see the distinction because he could not see her eyes, because the images the media had of her was her behind the façade of her fame, her eyes shaded by the roles she played.

**Your eyes, they were my Paradise**

**Your smile made my sun rise**

She was his muse, the one that had always told me to follow his heart – even if it had involved outer space and satellites and the like.

"So much for that idea," Danny muttered to himself, having never been able to rise above the bad grades that became his fate after the accident. "I failed myself. I failed…I failed her…I failed Sam."

The tears began falling anew, pain wracking his being. "I failed her in every way. I didn't bother holding on," he admitted to his empty room, allowing the release of his darkest convictions to drown him in the oblivion of sleep.

**Forgive me, for I don't know what I gain**

**Alone in this garden of pain**

Sam awoke near eight, wiping the sleep and salt trails from her face, drenched in a cold sweat from a dream that she could not remember. All that she did remember was the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, a feeling that had taken her the night that Danny and his family had departed in the Fenton RV. That same sensation had been there the night that she'd lost the one who held her heart in his hands, the one person that everyone else had told her would never amount to anything.

**Enchantment has but one truth:**

**I weep to have**

**What I fear to lose**

Danny peeled himself out of his sheets, careful not to bang his head on the frame of the bed like he'd done too often after these dreams. The carpeted floor was his only defense against the ever-present falling out of bed, and he'd learned through experience to pull himself out from under the bed before attempting to get up.

His pillow was already soaked from the tears he'd let loose as he drifted to sleep, but that didn't stop him from crying again. Slowly, he wandered into his bathroom, slowly pulling off his clothes and stepping into his shower. Letting the warm water course over him, he fought against the reality that Sam would soon be torn away from him again, this time because of her own departure. The balm of her presence would only be temporary, and the one thing that was holding all the pieces of his heart together would vanish once more. A sob escaped his lips as his thoughts turned back to the night he'd left, the words of his note forever etched into his memory.

_Sam,_

_I know that this is sudden, and that I really should have found out about this sooner, considering that I say to you what I should, but by the time that you wake up in the morning – or afternoon, depending – I'll be gone. Mom and Dad decided that we need a change of venue for the ghost hunting because they think that Amity Park has gotten a little dead lately, no pun intended. Anyway, I'll try to send you a letter or something as soon as we're settled in. From what I get, I think we're moving out to Massachusetts because I heard Mom mention Salem. Apparently, her and Dad seem to be thinking that ghosts will be more plentiful in a city that used to kill supposed witches. Either way, it creeps me out and makes me feel really horrible since I won't be able to tell you good-bye properly. _

_Let's hope that this move isn't permanent and that I'll be back in Amity Park soon._

_Forever yours,_

_Danny_

Danny had never gotten to tell Sam that he really had meant that last part, never told her that he truly loved her. He'd forgotten to call her once they had made it to Salem, and between all the unpacking and helping his parents that consumed their first week, he'd misplaced his phone. By the time he'd found it, he had gone so far as to call the Manson residence to talk to her, but her parents were as stern and silent as ever, refusing to even let him know if she was home and refusing to take a message for her. As far as he knew, they had never even let her know that he had called.

**You wake up**

**Where's the tomb?**

**Will Easter come?**

**Enter my room**

Sam stepped out of the shower, a soft white towel wrapped around her form as she fiddled with her hair. The last three years had been spent under the constant eye of some of Hollywood's best and brightest when it came to her hair and make-up, and tired of the royal treatment she received, she enjoyed finally having personal control over her appearance. Now that she'd gotten back in touch with Danny and away from the manipulation of her manager, her long-repressed sense of independence was alive and well.

Frowning as a stubborn lock fell in front of her eyes once more, she sighed and pulled an identical bit of hair from the other side of her head, pulling the half of her hair into a neat bun, the other half, now grown down to her waist, draping lightly over her shoulders and back.

Even though she'd managed to keep her gothic appearance through the years, some things had, inevitably, changed. Her make-up was now more feminine than punk and she had developed a good sense of style, able to used subtle amounts of dark cosmetics to accentuate her most impressive attribute, her alluring lilac eyes. As she thought about that fact, an image of Danny's eyes flashed through her mind, at once deep ocean blue and then the glowing jade of Danny Phantom.

**The Lord weeps for me**

**But my tears fall for you**

Sam looked at her reflection, her eyebrows furled. Now that the thought had crossed her mind, none of the news she'd ever gotten regarding Salem had even slightly pertained to Danny, neither as a human or a ghost. There had been some reported ghost sightings that the papers had reported, but the only ones ever involved had been Danny's parents, and Sam wondered why it was that Danny had so suddenly vanished from the public eye.

She turned to leave the bathroom and stopped short, her lipstick case, still unopened, falling from her hands to the marble tiles at her feet. Her heart had suddenly grown cold, the stunning realization hitting her harder than a ton of bricks. Somehow, Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom were no longer one in the same. Whether he'd subdued his ghost half or gotten rid of him completely, she didn't have a clue, but what she did know was that he'd given up on being the hero he had been in Amity Park. Torn away from everything he held dear, he had given up on being Phantom, on being what he had once held so close.

Collapsing to the floor, the tears could not rise to her eyes, held back by the mounting waves of pain that echoed through her body.

He had left, and all that he had believed that he was died without them there, without their encouragement and them being there to back him up.

**I knew you never before**

Danny's head shot up, phazing clean through the bottom of the wall cabinet in the kitchen of his apartment. Clenching his hands against the counter, he growled low. Something he'd nearly forgotten about had reawakened within him, the sensation that had torn through him, activating his intangibility.

Sam was in pain. He couldn't tell if it was physical or not, but he knew that she was hurting.

**I see you nevermore**

Picking up his cell phone from the counter, he checked his call log and dialed the number that had popped up when Sam had called him the night previous. It took four rings for her to answer, seemingly beating her voicemail to the punch by nanoseconds.

"Danny?" the voice came across the line sounding broken and fragile.

"Sam, where are you staying?"

"I…why?"

Danny sighed heavily, knowing what this would require of him. "Could you please tell me? I'll come pick you up since I'm already set to go."

"I'm at the hotel on the outskirts of town, the one just outside of the city limits, in room 704. I guess I'll see you in a little while, then?"

"Yeah," Danny said, nodding. "I'll see you when I get there. Bye."

"Bye, Danny."

**But the love, the pain, the hope**

**O, beautiful one**

A feeling that had become nothing more than memory flowed through his body, a cold breeze slowly beginning to permeate the room. Nearly two years after he'd vowed to never show his ghost half again, Danny reached within, initiating the change that unleashed the phantasmal half of who he was. The freedom that he felt was a welcome and quite missed sensation from all the depression that had consumed him recently. Without any more thought than to grab his wallet, his keys and his cell, Danny was invisible and out of the apartment, albeit with a slight bump on the head from trying to phaze through the wall and failing.

"I am _so_ out of practice," he stated as he soared across town, the wind whipping through his wild white locks.

**Have made you mine**

**Till all my years are done**

Closing his eyes, letting the sound of the roaring wind and the feel of the moist air coalesce around him, Danny let himself fall into the embrace of his Phantom entity, releasing the long-restrained power, and he shot skyward, rocketing through the light cloud cover, the moisture refreshing his face.

He'd forgotten how this felt, this sense of his own power coursing through him, the essence of the hero and fighter that he'd once been, the protector of the town he'd grown up in, the guardian of those he cared about and loved…especially Sam. With her gone from his life, Phantom became useless to him and to everyone around him, having become nothing more than another stranger that had moved into town one night.

Stopping as he crested another cloud, Danny felt the first glancing blows of guilt hit him. Sam had always been looking out for herself, and it had always been more likely, and most often the case, that Tucker was the one getting hurt. Sam had handled her own, always being there for him when he needed her, keeping his Phantom half alive in her own way, keeping his spirits up so that he would always be able to defend her. He'd let all of that slip away, let what she had made so special fade away into the oblivious realms of days gone by.

Another wave of pain ripped through him and he began to tumble. Catching himself before he cleared the clouds, Danny blasted off in the direction of the hotel, the sudden ache from the keeper of his heart more than enough to get him to her in mere seconds.

And in the blended confusion of her pain and his strength, Danny realized the one truth that had been there since he'd left all those years ago – Danny Phantom would always be a part of him, just the same way Sam would be, regardless of how she felt about him. There was no way that he could deny who or what he was anymore.

**Without you**

Tapping on the glass while remaining out of sight, Danny asked for Sam's permission to enter.

Looking towards the glass, Sam saw no one and nodded, knowing who was there. She'd been able to pull herself together, but her eyes remained bloodshot and puffy.

An unseen force wrapped around her waist, and Sam felt a hand move her head down, resting it against a shoulder that was and wasn't there. Cool hands roamed over her back, the chilled silk of her shirt gently rubbing against her slightly damp skin. Her heart skipped a beat as the hands drifted lower, resting gently on her hips. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine now. I've just been…a little out of it since we talked yesterday, you know?"

Slowly, the form of a being all too familiar to Sam came into view and she gasped slightly, seeing that Danny's human form had not been the only thing that had changed. Where she remembered him being lanky and lean, the Phantom that was holding her against him was more built, taut muscles shifting under the material of his suit. His hair remained as wild as she remembered, but the determination and power emanating from his otherworldly green eyes was something she'd never seen before. Never had the Danny Phantom of her childhood looked quite like this.

"Wow. You look so much different than I remember," she said, stepping back to look him over. "If I didn't know you any better, I would swear you're a completely different person than who you were back in Amity Park."

"It's been three years since you last saw me. People change."

Sam nodded, having also been drawn into those tides. "Then we should catch up a little. Is it okay with you if we just stay here for now, Danny?"

He nodded softly, allowing the blue-white rings to pass over his body before he sat down, pulling Sam down beside him on the mattress. "We can stay. I don't mind."

**The poetry within me**

**Is dead**


End file.
